Complementary oligonucleotide sequences are promising therapeutic agents and useful research tools in elucidating gene functions. However, prior art oligonucleotide molecules suffer from several problems that may impede their clinical development, and frequently make it difficult to achieve intended efficient inhibition of gene expression (including protein synthesis) using such compositions.
For example, classic siRNAs have limitations and drawbacks that may result in those agents being only moderately useful as human therapeutics. Specifically, classic siRNA is double-stranded. For each molecule, two strands need to be synthesized and paired up. Classic siRNA is made from naturally occurring ribonucleotides and is vulnerable to nucleases and spontaneous hydrolysis. The strands of classic siRNA are paired to each other except for an overhang of one strand at each end, and are about 19 to 23 nucleotides long. This configuration limits the variety and activity of the compound. For example, longer oligonucleotides can have higher binding activity to target RNA, which often correlates with higher activity. The overhangs of classic siRNA cause instability (because single strands are more nuclease resistant than double strands in most cases) and degradation, and may be the cause of the molecules “sticking” to each other or other nucleotides.
In addition, it is widely believed that double-stranded RNAs longer than 21-mer are cleaved by Dicer or Dicer-like RNAse III in mammalian cells, resulting in classic siRNA products. One strand of the Dicer-cleavage products is then loaded onto the RISC complex, and guides the loaded RISC complex to effect RNA interference (RNAi). However, since Dicer is not sequence specific, the Dicer-cleavage products of unmodified long dsRNA is a heterogeneous mixture of 21-mers, each may have different biological activity and/or pharmacological property. In addition, each 21-mer may have a distinct off-target effect (e.g., inhibiting the function of an unintended target due to, for example, spurious sequence homology between the Dicer cleavage product and target mRNAs). In other words, the active drug (e.g., the 21-mers) may be multiple species with relatively unpredictable target specificities, biological activities and/or pharmacological properties. Also, Dicer product is shorter than the parent, which leads to a lower affinity guide strand.
Other problems include the susceptibility of the siRNAs to non-specific nuclease degradation when applied to biological systems. Therefore, it would be of great benefit to improve upon the prior art oligonucleotides by designing improved oligonucleotides that either are free of or have reduced degree of the above-mentioned problems.